Public Art Project

Andre’ Smith, Lexie Marin, and Keriann Roush
Professors Rao and Skinner
PCA 261
22 February 2011
Public Art Proposal Project:
Ask Blue

For the public art proposal project, our group has decided to make a touch screen interactive sculpture called Ask Blue. Ask Blue is a figure that features a sculpture of Blue the bulldog, metal blue and silver flames, a silver textured metal frame around a monitor, and a shiny black painted wall behind it.

Ask Blue will possess numerous things that we find would be useful to people on campus. It will have a touch screen calendar, which will have a list of all the events and club activities on campus with information regarding time and requirements included. There will be a stamp next to events that count towards the Butler Cultural Requirement. It will also include a map of campus telling the user where they are and how to get to wherever they want to go. There will be a search feature at the top of the screen if the user is just concerned about a specific topic. While the machine is not being used, various fun facts about Butler will flash across the screen to really give Ask Blue a friendly feel.

The color and design pattern play a very important part in the proposal. The blue and silver flames serve as a play on the Butler torch symbol, which we believe is not really incorporated a lot in things on campus. We also decided to use the statue of Blue to make the user feel like they are really getting information from Blue, which makes it more interactive. The use of the silver textured frame and the black wall serve to make Ask Blue more visually appealing to draw people’s attention and to get them to use it.

We believe Ask Blue is a necessity on campus. We all sat down as a group and talked about issues we faced as students and saw that we all had similar problems. We all saw that we sometimes overlook emails, do not know when certain clubs meet, find it hard to navigate the school website, and want to find a way to meet new people. Our problems are problems all students face, upperclassmen and lower classmen, and Ask Blue’s features help solve them. Since there is an easy to use calendar that lists all events for each day so students can sort through which ones they want to attend. And, we all agreed that it was a little tricky finding our way around campus at the beginning of the year. But, with the map that can tell you where to go, this problem would no longer be an issue.

Another added benefit for campus is that Ask Blue allows for advertisements. Campus clubs can advertise on Ask Blue for free, which is great for clubs who are looking to add more members and raise awareness for themselves. While a user is navigating through Ask Blue, ads will appear at the bottom of the screen informing them about different clubs and how to join. In addition, local businesses can advertise on Ask Blue for a fee, which could be used by campus to fund other projects.

We chose four locations for Ask Blue: the HRC, the ResCo lobby, Starbucks in Atherton Union, and the South Mall. We realized that these are the places with the highest amount of student traffic so this would allow Ask Blue to be utilized in its fullest. To raise awareness for Ask Blue, we have designed a flyer that would be distributed to students on campus and nearby businesses. This way, the community will know that this utility exists and will want to use it.

Overall, we as a group see Ask Blue as being a creative and innovative way for students to find out information about on campus activities and local businesses, which allows them to be more involved and find things they enjoy at Butler.